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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No. 

SheltJICH 15 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




HE HIGHER EDUCATION 
AS A TRAINING * * * * 
FOR BUSINESS * * * * <* 



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BY HARRY PRATT JUDSON 






SEP 4 



1896 



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Philadelphia^ & & J& & 

HENRY ALTEMUS 



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Copyrighted by Henry Altemus, of Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsyl- 
vania, on August 17, i8qb, in the One Hundred and Twentieth Year 
of the Independence of the United States of America. 



Henry Altemus, Manufacturer, 
philadelphia. 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

AS A 

TRAINING FOR BUSINESS. 



WHY GO TO COLLEGE? 

" Why should I send my boy to college? 
He is going into business. If he spends four 
of his choicest years in student life he will be 
apt to get expensive habits and unpractical 
ideas ; he will learn little or nothing which he 
can use. After all he will have to begin at 
the beginning in his business, and he will 
merely be so much behind other young men 
who have been at work while he has been 
idling. Besides, I never saw the inside of a 
college, and yet my business career has been 
a marked success. The same thing is true of 
most men I meet. What is the use of wast- 
ing so much time and money?" 

These are questions which many a thought- 
ful father asks himself, and to which a con- 

5 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

elusive answer is not always at hand. The 
following pages are an attempt to group some 
thoughts which may aid in solving the prob- 
lem. But this should be distinctly understood 
at the outset — it is not expected that the con- 
clusion will in all cases be the same. Boys 
are not alike. Circumstances differ. The 
wise man is one who is able to apply princi- 
ples to conditions as they exist. In short, 
some boys intended for a business life ought 
by all means to be sent to college. Others as 
certainly should be kept away from college. 
And there are others of whom it really does 
not matter whether they go or stay. 

MANY SUCCESSFUL MEN NEVER IN 
COLLEGE. 

There is no doubt at all that great success 
in business may be won and is won by men 
who have had very scanty schooling. Bankers, 
railroad presidents, millionaires of all sorts, who 
know nothing of college education, are as thick 
as blackberries. And many of these are not 
merely men who have amassed a fortune ; 
they are often men of great knowledge of 
of the world, statesmen, philanthropists, con- 

6 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

noisseurs in art and music. They are always 
men of great force of character. They are 
the " self-made men " for whom our demo- 
cratic American society has afforded so many 
chances and of whom we are so justly proud. 
And some of these men are inclined to sneer 
at the college as merely ornamental — at col- 
lege life as more or less elegant idling — at 
college studies as a sort of educational bric-a- 
brac. Horace Greeley used to say in his for- 
cible way, " Of all horned cattle, deliver me 
from a college graduate." And so there has 
come to be in many minds a sharp antithesis 
between the higher education and business 
such an antagonism as there is between dawd- 
ling and doing. 

SCHOLARS OFTEN POOR BUSINESS MEN. 

This feeling is perhaps deepened by the 
further undoubted fact that many highly 
trained scholars are poor business men. 
Clergymen and authors and college professors 
sometimes take a sort of pride in being un- 
practical. They live in a land of dreams, but 
the butcher and the baker will not take their 
pay in dreams. Yet the habit of " high 

7 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

thinking" apparently takes these dreamers 
so very high in the air that they have learned 
a lofty contempt for the ground. " Mere 
material considerations" are vulgar. Anew 
aristocracy has grown up among us — the 
aristocracy of " culture." And just as the 
old French noblesse disdained manual labor 
as a peasantly employment, so our modern , 
intellectual noblesse are apt to despise all 
business as uninteresting, sordid, common. 
"Practical" — this word to numbers of our 
educated men, especially in their earlier years, 
is like a red rag to a bull. Our Western civi- 
lization is inferior to that of the East, because 
the West is too " practical." Life in the new 
world is far and away less desirable than that 
across the Atlantic, because in America we 
are too much absorbed in the engrossing task 
of developing material resources. 

Now, when a man is in this way of think- 
ing, he is hardly apt to handle with much 
interest or success such matters of business as 
fall to his lot. Every man is perforce obliged 
to do something in managing affairs. But if 
he cannot seem to conduct the simplest mat- 
ters without muddling them — if he is appar- 

8 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

ently unable to put two and two together 
without making either three or five, rather 
than four ; if, whether from carelessness or 
inability, he fails to " get along," but is per- 
petually in financial straits, he is quite likely 
to wear out the patience of men who have the 
faculty of doing things. And as education 
and incompetence are in point of fact so often 
conjoined, it is not surprising if the inference 
is at once made that they are merely cause 
and effect. 

There are other business traits besides prac- 
tical competence in which college-educated 
men are often lacking. Punctuality and 
fidelity to engagements are cardinal business 
virtues. But clergymen and literary men in 
general often seem to have no idea of time. 
An engagement for a given moment seems to 
mean " there or thereabouts." A note falling 
due on a given day may be met or arranged 
at maturity, if the good man who draws it 
happens to think of it. Otherwise the bank 
is apt to waive protest and send a special re- 
minder, with the sort of patience one has for 
women and children. 

Then, too, the man of business knows that 

9 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

busy hours are precious. He comes crisply 
to the point, decides promptly, and goes 
briskly on his way. Our excellent other- 
worldly scholar lingers and prattles and 
doesn't know how to make up his mind any 
more than does a woman in a millinery shop. 
He is in the habit of brooding and dreaming 
over his great thoughts in science. But if 
one is buying a horse it doesn't do to brood 
and dream. 

Again, a business man knows that his word 
is a part of his capital. If he enters into en- 
gagements he expects to keep them to the 
letter, or his reputation for trustworthiness, 
and therefore his business, will be sadly dam- 
aged. This is a sort of honesty which is rather 
common. But a scholar sometimes is not 
sure to realize exactly what this sort of integ- 
rity means. He makes an engagement to do a 
certain thing ; but if afterwards he prefers not 
to do it, it does not always occur to him that 
he is bound in honor. A merchant once said 
to the writer, " It is queer that ministers will 
lie so about business matters. If the saloon 
keeper across the street promises to do a cer- 
tain thing I can be pretty safe in depending 

10 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

on it. But if my pastor makes a promise I 
am never quite sure that he will keep it until 
the thing is actually done." Of course the 
good men don't lie. They merely fail to 
realize the force of words. They live so much 
among pure ideas, figments of their fancy 
which come and go as the whim seizes, that it 
is hardly matter for surprise if things and 
ideas get somewhat mixed. 

It must be admitted that many profound 
scholars are rather helpless business men. 

BUSINESS NOT THE CHIEF AIM OF THE 
HIGHER EDUCATION. 

Of course, this also is true — success in 
business is quite distinctly not the chief aim 
in the higher education. The college plans 
for various ends — for mental training, which 
surely ought to stand one in stead in any oc- 
cupation which the mind serves — for a wide 
variety of knowledge, knowledge of books, 
and language, and science, knowledge of 
history, and art, and philosophy ; for a cer- 
tain polish, that refinement in thought and 
manner which makes the gentleman tech- 
nically so called. And we see at once 

ii 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

that the most of these things have little 
bearing on making bargains, which after 
all is the essence of business. Suppose a 
young man can read Greek fluently, is famil- 
iar with the history of philosophy, is able to 
detect and relish the airiest niceties of literary 
style, how much better equipped is he with 
all that for manufacturing mowing machines ? 
One can only say that when the college was 
teaching philosophy and literary criticism it had 
absolutely no thought of mowing machines 
at all. It was aiming at refined culture ; and 
culture we do not ordinarily place in the same 
category with mowing machines. True, a 
man may at the same time enjoy Plato and 
jute bagging. Perhaps there is nothing es- 
sentially incongruous in the thought of a 
banker who is familiar with the correlation of 
forces ; and the writer has seen a learned 
professor of Greek engaged industriously and 
skillfully in chopping cord wood. All that is 
maintained is that the higher education does 
not make these practical avocations its chief 
end. It has quite different purposes to which 
it gives the first place. In other words, the 
real college is decidedly not a business college. 

12 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 
COLLEGE WEAKLINGS. 

But it is not learned men only who are un- 
practical dilettanti. There are plenty of col- 
lege youths who have not even a speaking 
acquaintance with learning, and whose prac- 
tical abilities are conspicuous by their absence. 
They have opinions about neckties. They 
have a vast store of knowledge anent the 
niceties of social forms. They are marvel- 
ously wise in women lore. They are widely 
read in fiction, being thoroughly convinced of 
the expedience of industry in this especial 
branch of literary culture — they call novels 
"books." They are connoisseurs in cigars 
and wines, and are thoroughly posted on 
all matters of intercollegiate sport. Do you 
recognize the type ? It is common enough — 
indeed it is the college type which is perhaps 
most obtrusively in evidence. The seasoned 
man of the world smiles indulgently, as he 
would at the antics of a pert terrier. But 
sober people look more sober still. Is this 
the sort of thing which the college means ? 
Are these shallow youths the natural product 
of the higher education ? Is this the training 
which is to take up the world's work with the 
energy and ability of disciplined power ? 

13 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 
COLLEGE ATTENDANCE GROWING. 

But, notwithstanding the obtrusiveness of 
these phasey student characters, the attend- 
ance at colleges is greatly increasing — at a 
higher rate, indeed, than the general increase 
of population would lead us to expect. And 
a still more significant fact is the considerable 
number in each college class who are not 
going into the learned professions. Time was 
when the overwhelming majority of graduates 
went at once to theology, or law, or medicine, 
as a matter of course. That is not the case to- 
day. A large number of the college students 
of the time are planning for a business life, as 
the statistics of any college class will show. 
Sometimes this fact is bewailed, as indicating, 
for instance, a poverty of material for recruit- 
ing the ranks of the clergy. But such an 
inference is unwarranted. The proportion of 
graduates entering the ministry is less than of 
old, because so many more men now are 
getting a college education. 

IS COLLEGE TRAINING ALL A MISTAKE? 

In the light of these facts, we see that not- 
withstanding the admitted absurdities which 

14 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

cling about college training, still there is an 
increasing number of young men seeking 
that training and yet expecting to enter busi- 
ness life. Are they all wrong? Are they 
wasting their time and their money ? Or is 
it possible that the unpractical features of the 
higher learning on which we have dwelt are 
perhaps only partial truths after all? We 
know that it is the disagreeables which make 
an impression. The newspapers are full of re- 
ports of crimes and blunders, while the quiet 
and noble lives, which so vastly outnumber 
those of the other kind, find little public 
notice. If this were not true, our society 
would be impossible and would resolve itself 
into chaos. So one should take the daily 
press as quite largely a record of the unusual 
and the abnormal. And it may be that this 
is also true in regard to an impression of col- 
lege men. A cluster of young donkeys at 
Cambridge make a sudden display of their 
ears, and the scandalized nation exclaims : 
" What silly creatures these Harvard students 
are ! " Are they ? Are there not many hun- 
dreds of young men under the old elms who 
are quietly attending to their business in 

i5 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

manly fashion, while it is perhaps a dozen 
who have disgraced themselves? And is it 
the dozen, or the hundreds, who are the 
Harvard type ? 

Then, perhaps, it is worth while to inquire 
with some care into the accuracy of that notion 
of the higher learning which makes its products 
unpractical, visionary, pedantic, dandified. 
That such results do, in fact, appear, cannot 
be denied. But are they the normal results ? 
Do our ideas of the colleges need readjust- 
ing ? Let us see. 

WHAT WE MEAN BY BUSINESS. 

First of all we should see what we mean 
by business. 

Business is the art of getting and keeping 
money, or money's worth. 

The merchant, the banker, the manufact- 
urer, are all busy as bees with a common 
object. The merchant aims to sell goods for 
more than they have cost him. The banker 
loans money for interest. The manufacturer 
tries to change the form of his raw materials 
so as to give the products an enhanced value. 
They all want profit. And profit to all alike 

16 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

means addition to capital — money, or what 
can be exchanged for money. 

Walk the streets of a modern city, and 
what do we see ? Stores, offices, manufact- 
ories crowded with men and women, and all 
actively at work. Trucks and wagons fill the 
streets, streams of people pass along the side- 
walks, all in a hurry, nearly all intent on 
buying or selling. In the railroad yards long 
freight trains are coming and going, piled and 
packed with merchandise. At the docks 
ships are lying, with an army of stevedores 
loading or unloading cargo. Everywhere 
bustle, rush, noise, labor. In the residence 
streets there is more quiet. But at nightfall 
they, too, are filled with people coming home 
from office or shop, to get by repose strength 
for another day of work and worry. A city 
is a hive of industry, surrounded by the 
homes of the workers. 

Now all this is business. The great bulk 
of people in any city are, in one shape or 
another, dependent directly on business for 
their livelihood. And every man is to some 
extent a business man. 

17 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 
BUSINESS OR PROFESSION. 

Perhaps your friend who is a physician 
says : " No, I am a professional man. My 
neighbor who keeps a shoe store is in 
business. But I am not." He is right and 
wrong at the same time. Is he practising 
medicine merely from benevolence ? or for 
amusement ? or in order to add to his scien- 
tific knowledge ? He may have all these 
objects ; but if he is a good doctor, he 
charges round fees and takes pains to collect 
them. He uses every legitimate means of 
extending his practice, so as to multiply his 
fees. As he gets older he gets richer, and 
invests his money in a fine home, in an ex- 
pensive turnout, perhaps in safe mortgages. 
And just to the extent that he tries to make 
money and takes care of his money when it 
is made, is he a business man. To be sure, 
many a good physician is a poor man of busi- 
ness. But that is his misfortune. Business 
is a part of his work, and a very important 
part. He is a professional man, to be sure ; 
but he is a business man, too. 

The same is true of the lawyer, and even 
of the clergyman. In short any form of 

18 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 



human activity in which money-getting or 
money-keeping is an element, to that extent 
is a business. 

Then is there, in fact, a valid distinction 
between a profession and a business? Un- 
doubtedly. Any line of life may necessarily 
involve business and yet viewed as a whole, 
may be a profession. The decision depends 
on the prevailing tendency. The nature of 
his work is such that the main thoughts of a 
good physician turn on problems of healing. 
The financial returns hold a secondary place. 
But if this relation is inverted the medical 
practitioner at once becomes predominantly a 
business man. The true physician is in a 
profession. The quack is in business. And 
how it jars on the public sense of the fitness 
of things to see a physician, or an artist, or a 
cleryman, or a poet, making money profit a 
primary end ? We say : " He is mercenary " 
and there is a sneer in the word. There is 
nothing disparaging in calling a banker mer- 
cenary. Of course he is. But we have not 
the same respect for a literary hack that we 
have for a merchant, although both have the 
same primary object in view. We see at 

*9 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

once that the former has inverted the true 
relation of things — the latter preserves them. 
The one is abnormal — the other is normal. 
Each is a business man, to be sure ; but the 
hack writer, the medical quack, the ecclesias- 
tical money maker, the skillful artist, who 
contents himself with "pot boilers," all alike 
have put the stamp of business on occupations 
in which we feel that it should be altogether 
secondary to another aim. 

Any form of human activity, then, in which 
money or its equivalent is the chief end in 
view, is primarily a business, and any form of 
human activity in which money profit is not 
the chief end in view is not primarily a busi- 
ness, so may be regarded as a profession. 
But many humane occupations include busi- 
ness, although that is not their predominant 
character. And by giving the business ele- 
ment the chief place, any such occupation at 
once becomes a business. 

Such an inversion of things is distasteful to 
most people, however, and is apt to cast a 
stigma on the one who is responsible for it. 
Is that because in the nature of business there 
is anything unworthy of a high-minded man ? 

16 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

By no means. Business in itself is a most 
honorable pursuit. More, it is the prime 
necessity of human existence, and in its larger 
forms, is the essential condition of modern 
civilization. The area of European ideas has 
been extended around the world. Whole 
populations have been transferred across the 
Atlantic — new means of transportation, and of 
the transmission of thought, have revolution- 
ized modern life. The forces of nature have 
largely been made subject to human will. 
And in all these great achievements of the 
last few centuries a powerful influence — per- 
haps the most powerful influence^ — has been 
simply commerce. The exchange of com- 
modities and the profit resulting therefrom are 
what maintain human existence, surround it 
with comfort, provide for the extension of 
learning, for art, science, literature and reli- 
gion. Business, then, which is so essential a 
part of human activity, can properly only be 
regarded as a dignified and important pursuit. 

THE OBJECT OF BUSINESS. 

We have spoken of business as the art of 
getting and keeping money, or money's 

21 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

worth. This is intended as a plain, rough- 
and-ready statement of the case, without any 
attempt at splitting hairs. To be sure, if we 
were writing a treatise on political economy we 
might put the matter in different words ; but 
for all practical purposes it would seem that 
any definition would answer. 

Then it is plain enough that money-making 
in some form is the leading object of business. 
Men buy and sell, not merely for fun, but for 
profit. Of course one may take much 
pleasure in giving money away in helping 
the poor, in subscribing to all sorts of religious 
and benevolent objects. A wealthy miner 
setting out for Alaska, not long since, amused 
himself while waiting for the steamer to start 
by throwing double handfuls of gold and 
silver coin among the crowd on the dock. 
Of course there was a great scramble, which 
tickled the miner exceedingly. But giving 
away money is not business. It' may be a 
very praiseworthy thing or a very foolish 
thing. The swaggering parvenu who lighted 
his cigar with a hundred-dollar bill doubtless 
enjoyed the small sensation he made ; but 
that was not business. 

22 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

Business implies first of all the effort to 
"make money." And this is a perfectly 
praiseworthy thing. Every man should do 
something to make good his place in the 
world. One sometimes hears the remark, 
11 The world owes me a living." But in truth 
the world owes a living to no one who has 
not earned it ; and he is a poor specimen of 
a man who dawdles through life putting forth 
no effort in return for the comforts which he 
enjoys. Such a man, if he is poor, we call " a 
tramp." There are plenty of rich tramps 
who live in fine houses and clothe themselves 
in style and eat and drink of the best, and 
who are no more respectable or useful to the 
world than the shiftless vagabonds of the 
highways. Everybody who can do so ought 
to earn his own living, or her own living. 
And no one who can do that and does not, 
can understand what is meant by self-respect. 

We pay altogether too much attention to 
what our neighbors say and think about us. 
It is important, of course, to have a good 
name ; but after all, the main question is this — 
what do you think of yourself? and lack of 
independence cuts up self-respect by the roots. 

23 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

It is far better to wear cowhide brogans which 
one has earned than patent-leather shoes which 
are a gift. The best way to help a poor man 
is to give him not money but work. In that 
case you bless him doubly — you relieve his 
need and save his manhood. 

LAYING UP MONEY. 

But saving is quite as much a part of busi- 
ness as is making. " The fool and his money 
are soon parted" is a saying as true as it is 
trite. Indeed, it is far easier to earn money 
than it is to keep from spending it ; and busi- 
ness sagacity is nowhere shown so rarely as 
in sound economy. It is perfectly plain that 
if one lives the allotted term of human life, 
there will come a time when work is impos- 
sible. Then if there is nothing laid by for old 
age one is practically a pauper. 

But, besides this, nearly every man has 
more or less helpless ones dependent on him 
for bread. Suppose he is taken away, what 
is to become of them ? Common prudence 
points to such saving in times of health and 
prosperity as will provide for such an emer- 
gency. And this is business. 

24 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

These thoughts may enable us to answer 
some important questions. 

What is the least which any man ought to 
earn ? Why, enough, in the first place, to 
provide a living for himself and his family ; 
enough, in the second place, to insure support 
in time of old age ; enough, in the third place, 
to care for those dependent on him in case of 
his death. 

What is the least which any man ought to 
save ? Enough to provide for the contingen- 
cies of disability, old age, or death. 

Now, beyond these limits there is the widest 
possible range. What would seem a generous 
living to one man would be poverty to another; 
standards differ. And when men accumulate 
property beyond the needs we have named, 
even on their own scale, then they are found- 
ing estates for future generations, or they are 
creating fortunes which they may use as in- 
struments in great enterprises. But this is 
wealth, in the popular sense of the term. 
Providing for the three purposes above named 
assures a competence. 

25 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 
THE PLACE OF HONOR IN BUSINESS. 

Is honesty the best policy ? 

Many business men practically answer this 
in the negative. They are convinced that 
business is a game in which the sharpest is 
the one most apt to be the winner ; that the 
exact truth is out of place in a business deal ; 
in short, that all is fair in business as well as 
in love and war. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in 
his essay on " The Morals of Trade," a num- 
ber of years ago, pointed out in detail many 
of the petty frauds to which the business of 
that day was subject. There is little reason 
to think that late years have seen much 
amendment. 

Some time ago a friend of the writer con- 
ceived the idea of embarking in the business 
of selling pure spices. He had been for a 
long time in the wholesale grocery trade and 
was well aware that nearly all spices were 
adulterated. So it seemed to him likely that 
people would be glad to buy at a place where 
they could be assured that they would get 
only genuine goods. He obtained his stock 
and opened business. But very soon he ran 
against an obstacle which was wholly unfore- 

26 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

seen. He found that nobody wanted pure 
spices. They cost more than the adulterated 
article and very few consumers knew the dif- 
ference, so thoroughly ignorant was their taste 
by reason of their long-continued use of that 
kind. It does not pay retailers to keep what 
their customers would not buy. The dealer 
in pure spices had to go out of business. 

Did you ever buy a barrel of apples ? How 
large and fair they are just under the cover, 
and how little and gnarled and wormeaten 
they get towards the centre of the barrel. 
Examine a box of grapes. On the surface 
the clusters are large, the grapes are plump 
and sound. On the inside, broken bunches, 
small and green and, perhaps, unsound grapes 
and a profusion of stems. The prudent buyer 
does not judge a box of strawberries by the 
topmost layer, or the ripeness of a basket 
of peaches by effect of the pink gauze spread 
over the top. All these are petty frauds. Of 
the colossal chicanery which public life affords 
it is clear enough that we need make no men- 
tion. The theft of public funds, the wrecking 
of railroads, the unscrupulous manipulation of 
stocks, these are familiar enough to all. 

27 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

FRAUD IS NOT THE PREDOMINANT 
ELEMENT. 

Now, is all this a just picture of modern 
business ideas and methods ? Is unscrupu- 
lousness a necessary condition of business 
success ? Is honesty a sham ? 

There are some things which in fairness 
might be considered on the other side of the 
case — things which have very great signi- 
ficance. No business man can afford not to 
keep his business engagements most scrupu- 
lously. The age of cash payment in all traffic 
is but one step in advance of the age of barter. 
Credit is the very breath of life to modern 
trade and a business man's credit is a large 
part of his capital. Indeed, a man of small 
actual capital whose credit is gilt edged, can 
easily get a financial backing which will enable 
him to do a large business and reap large 
profits ; but such credit depends upon con- 
vincing people of one's absolute fidelity to 
engagements. A note must be met with 
unfailing promptitude ; a verbal pledge must 
be religiously respected ; accounts must be 
methodically exact ; any statements of one's 
business condition, plans or prospects must 

28 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

be unfailingly accurate. When one appears 
slack in the observance of these principles, 
bankers and capitalists begin to look on him 
with suspicion. They presently doubt his 
statements. They insist on precise security 
for loans. His credit evaporates. He is going 
down hill, and it is a hill which cannot be 
climbed again. "Facilis est descensus Averni." 

REPUTATION A SLOW GROWTH. 

To win such credit as has been named is 
no matter of a few days. It takes, usually, 
long years of active business, so that people 
may learn slowly to feel confidence. A busi- 
ness man, some years since, was talking of 
this matter with the writer. " Young men," 
he said, " often fail to realize the vast impor- 
tance to their future of winning this solid con- 
fidence. Not infrequently one may keep to a 
perfectly straight course for years, and then 
by a single act of folly destroy it all. It is 
not so much brilliancy as steadiness which in 
the end will win business success." He was 
quite right. Confidence in one's trustworthi- 
ness depends on negative evidence. We come 
to believe that one will keep faith merely 

29 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

because we learn that thus far it has never 
been broken. But a single positive act to the 
contrary, at one blow destroys the trust so 
slowly created. A single shifty evasion at 
once convinces us that here is the true char- 
acter coming out at last — that the rest is 
mere hypocrisy. Hence it is that business 
confidence, the most valuable possession of a 
business man to-day, is a fabric created with 
painful effort, only after a long time, and is 
very perishable. In other words it is much 
easier to burn a house down than it is to 
build it. 

HONESTY A GOOD ASSET. 

A reputation for honest dealing is another 
valuable asset. To be sure, sharp tricks may 
be used which will suffice to palm off inferior 
goods at the price of superior articles, or by 
which short weight or short measure may 
defraud the customer. Each of these devices 
is apt to result in an immediate profit. But 
in the long run such frauds will be detected. 
No house which habitually practices them 
can expect permanence. A prominent Chi- 
cago merchant, the other day, was recounting 
a number of such practices with which he 

30 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

had been familiar in past years. But he 
added that the firms addicted to that policy 
had been weeded out ; one by one they had 
failed. The houses which had weathered the 
storms and maintained themselves for a long 
time were those which could not afford to 
cheat. 

SUCCESS IN BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 
IN LIFE. 

It is just as well to remember that after all 
business is not the whole of life. To be sure, 
it is a very large part and a very important 
part. Still, life has many sides beside the 
business side. An excellent man of business 
may be a bad citizen, a bad father, an unhappy 
man. One may succeed in business and yet 
even his own judgment make a failure of life; 
and it is possible to fail in business, but yet 
to make life a glorious success. In short, 
business is in truth a means to an end. That 
end is a good, all-around life. Without the 
products of business activity such a life is 
difficult; but the means should not be mis- 
taken for the end. Suppose one succeeds in 
getting a large fortune and nothing else. 
What does he amount to ? He has money 

3' 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

with no sort of idea as to its best use. He 
has power and doesn't know what to do with 
it. He is like a superb steam engine, which 
has been built up with great labor and pains, 
which works magnificently, but which runs 
nothing but itself. The piston slides in and 
out, the balance wheel whirs, the steam 
puffs busily, but there is no power belt. The 
engine doesn't really do anything after all. 
So it is with a man who has established a 
business, who has amassed a fortune. He has 
only got possession of a tool. Now what is 
he going to do with it? What does he know 
how to do with it? What does he want to do 
with it? There is the test. 

To succeed in business and to succeed in 
life, then, are two things which are not always 
conjoined. They should be. The best success 
is to succeed in both. But, then, success is no 
small thing and implies no small knowledge. 
Modern life is very complex. There were 
times, before the day of railroads and tele- 
graphs and newspapers, when few people had 
many things to think about. Life was slow. 
Nothing happened very often. The deliberate 
jog-trot of existence favored a placid frame of 

32 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

mind which seldom was disturbed from with- 
out and rarely required any feverish energy 
from within. Men and cabbages were not 
so far apart as they are now. 

But all that is changed. Human knowl- 
edge has not merely been added to, it has 
been multiplied. New thoughts are turning 
up on all sides with bewildering rapidity. 
The quiet stream of life which flowed between 
meadows, reflecting on its still surface the 
willows and the blue sky and the mild-eyed 
kine, has become a rushing torrent which 
turns the wheels of countless busy mills in its 
rapid way to the infinite ocean. The dreamer 
is out of date. Men must be thinking and 
doing with nervous energy. Their minds are 
wide awake. The pace is set by steam now, 
and not by oxen. People are no longer 
provincial. The whole world belongs to 
everybody. 

In these new social conditions it is plain 
enough that the adjustment of the individual 
to society is no longer the relatively simple 
thing that it was. One who would fill any 
considerable place in the world must under- 
stand the world in more than a fragmentary 

33 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

way, and that understanding implies a wide 
and varied training. Is it not reasonable to 
conclude that the best training for business 
will at the same time enable one to grapple 
with business problems and to subordinate 
business achievements to their higher ends? 
It will be a training for success in the acquisi- 
tion of wealth and for equal success in the 
use and enjoyment of it. Thus will success 
in business lead to that wider success in life 
of which the former is only a part. 

THE REQUIREMENTS OF BUSINESS. 

Confining the attention for the present to 
the immediate demands and adaptation to 
business, let us see what the most essential of 
these demands are. 

First of all, surely nothing is more essential 
than industry. Perhaps it is true that most 
people are by nature lazy, and work hard 
only under the impulse of necessity. To be 
sure, almost anyone may be very energetic 
on occasion — this is what athletes call a 
" spurt ;" but sustained application for a long 
period of time — this is what wears on one's 
patience, and this is what tells in the race 

34 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

of life. " It's doggedness as does it," is an 
old saying as true as it is homely. No one 
is fit for success in business unless so far under «, 
the mastery of his will that he can compel 
himself to work hard and steadily; indeed, 
his training is not complete until the effort 
disappears, and patient labor, whether by body 
or mind, becomes a habit. 

But mere industry is not enough. In order 
to tell, labor must be well directed; and to 
that end one must know what he is about. 
He must understand his business. He must 
know people and how to deal with them. 
He must have a wide knowledge which 
has no apparent bearing on his immediate 
affairs — a knowledge which we commonly call 
intelligence. A successful business man must 
be an intelligent man — a man who understands. 

But knowledge and industry are not enough. 
The business man's mind should not only be 
well stored, but acute as well. He should be 
able to see a point and quickly, at that. The 
turns of business life often require instant 
perception, prompt decision, rapid action. 
One on whose mind an idea dawns slowly — 
who digests facts as an anaconda does a pig, 

35 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

in a semi-comatose state. Such a one will 
seldom form an opinion before the time for 
action has passed. He is like the old lady 
on the underground railroad train in London. 
Being very stout she felt obliged to back 
slowly out of the car at her station. But 
before she was half way out the guard came 
along and thought she was getting in, so he 
briskly pushed her in the car, slammed the 
door, and away went the train. She went 
five times around the entire circuit of London, 
repeating the attempt each time she came to 
her station, before she was able to get out 
finally. Business doesn't wait for sleepy peo- 
ple. An acute and ready mind is essential. 

Reliability, too, is quite as important an 
element of success. Business consists of deal- 
ing with men ; and no one can long deal suc- 
cessfully with men unless they learn to depend 
on him. They must be confident that he can 
do what he undertakes. They must feel sure 
that he will do as he agrees. A man who 
has thus won the confidence of his associates 
is on the high road to success. Without this 
confidence one may succeed ; but the chances 
are very much against him. 

36 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

In short, a business man's resources cannot 
all be deposited in the bank. They include 
three separate things — what he has, what he 
is in himself, and the good opinion of his 
fellow-men. Without anyone of these three 
a man is handicapped, and he can hardly get 
the first and the third unless he has in him- 
self the four prime qualities of industry, in- 
telligence, acuteness, and reliability. 

HOW THE HIGHER EDUCATION TRAINS 
TO INDUSTRY. 

The habit of sustained mental application 
is got only by persistently applying the mind 
to work in a systematic way ; and in no other 
line of life is such systematic mental labor so 
uniformly required as in our higher institutions 
of learning. In not a few lines of employment 
there are busy times and slack times. Now, 
for a long time there is little to strain the 
attention, and then for a while every nerve 
is taut. But in college the work is almost 
absolutely uniform. It can be successfully 
done only by regular application, day by day, 
week in and week out. It is work of a kind, 
too, calculated to draw out the best powers 

37 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

at the student's control. He is constantly- 
thinking, reasoning, learning, trying to under- 
stand. He is incessantly training himself to 
submit to his will — to work when he would 
rather idle, to think when he would rather 
dream. A good student in college lives a 
busy life. His days are marked out into 
definite portions, and to each is allotted a 
specific task. He works with energy from 
morning till night — often into the night. He 
is no sluggard. Even his spurts are energetic. 
Lounging plays a small part in college life. 
Base-ball, foot-ball, tennis are games which 
hardly encourage indolence. College politics 
puts one on the qui vive. 

The editor of a college paper has no sine- 
cure. In truth, a college is a hive of industry. 
There are drones, no doubt, and sometimes 
they buzz more than the workers. But they 
are the minority. No one can be a respec- 
table student in a good college without very 
systematic industry — without forming the habit 
of working steadily and cheerfully. 

Business is not always merely so much 
labor. It presents constantly new difficulties, 
new problems to solve, and that is just the 

33 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

nature of a student's work. He has by no 
means only so much to learn, which can be 
measured off by the yard and swallowed as 
the Neapolitan peasants do their macaroni. 
College study is full of knotty questions. 
There is a daily grapple with these difficulties. 
There are strength and confidence learned by 
experience and success. In short, the well- 
trained college man knows how to work 
patiently and hard, how to wrestle with new 
questions, how to keep at a thing until he 
masters it ; and this is the very essence of the 
habit of business. The higher education gives 
just the training in industry which a business 
life demands. 

WHAT SORT OF INTELLIGENCE THE HIGHER 
EDUCATION GIVES. 

It is a common notion that the student 
comes out of college laden only with "book 
knowledge," and that " book knowledge " is 
of necessity unpractical, and, in the main, 
probably more or less useless. This is an 
imperfect notion, like many others, which 
people form without adequate investigation. 
The fact is that the higher education deals 

39 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

with a great mass of knowledge which has 
a very immediate bearing on the conduct 
of life. Language and literature and history- 
are not mere intellectual luxuries. They are 
the record of what men have been thinking 
and doing in many lands and in many ages. 
No one can be the worse for such knowl- 
edge, no matter what his purposes, and a 
thorough knowledge of the mode of human 
thought and action under a wide variety of 
conditions surely is not a bad preparation to 
understand men when one comes to deal 
actively with them. 

But there is another class of knowledge 
afforded of the higher education which has a 
very immediate bearing on affairs. Every 
advanced modern college gives much atten- 
tion to what we may call, roughly speaking, 
the social sciences. By this we mean a study 
of society as it is to-day. There is an analysis 
of the structure and working of government ; 
the essentials of law, public and private ; the 
elements of economics, including an investiga- 
tion of industrial methods and of the principles 
of finance. This sort of study does not by 
any means consist in the mere teaching of 

40 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

shadowy theories. It rather involves a care- 
ful investigation of facts and a training in 
drawing sound conclusions. The knowledge 
thus reached is of the utmost value to every 
man who has to do with actual affairs. This 
value may be said to lie mainly, perhaps, in 
enabling one to avoid mistakes. The experi- 
ence of people who have been working under 
erroneous ideas, the experiments which have 
been made and have failed, the proved princi- 
ples of safe policy, the legal ideas which 
underlie our society, all these are the mater- 
ial of an intelligence which is of the highest 
moment to business life. More of it would 
have prevented a multitude of wild enterprises 
with their inevitable loss to their projectors 
and disaster to the community. 

Another essential part of the modern 
higher education includes the material sciences. 
Chemistry and physics, geology and biology ; 
without these and similar branches a modern 
college course is impossible. But all these 
deal with subject matter of knowledge which 
has an eminently practical bearing. These 
are the things in which the world to-day is 
making tremendous progress. They are filled 

41 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

with the most absorbing interest. With the 
vast expansion of scientific knowledge the 
control of material forces is also extended. 
With the extension of that control the means 
and methods of business are from time to 
time fairly revolutionized ; and it is plain that 
scientific knowledge has a very significant 
business value. 

The higher education, then, is calculated to 
give a broad intelligence which fits one the 
better to understand any business problems ; 
and with this broad intelligence it should be 
noticed that such problems are approached 
from above, rather than from below. There 
is a great difference between reaching up to 
understand a situation, and reaching down 
to it. 

Of course, no man, no matter what his 
general intelligence, is fitted for a specific 
business until he has also mastered the special 
knowledge which belongs to it. But, as a 
rule, the acquisition of that special knowl- 
edge is not difficult to one who has already 
found out how to learn and how to do. He 
will grasp rapidly and learn readily. And as 
compared with one who has merely acquired 

42 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

the special knowledge, the highly educated 
man has an advantage in his wider range of 
intelligence. It is of enormous value when 
one learns something to be able to put it in 
relation with something else. If, however, 
the number of things one knows is small, 
there are not many relations which can be 
found for it. But a man whose mind is full 
never gets a new idea without at once seeing 
its bearing in a great number of other ideas ; 
and a business man whose mind in this way 
bristles with hooks for grappling with facts 
is sure to have so fresh an intelligence that 
his business is no mere routine. 

The higher education makes an intelligent 
man ; and the more intelligent a man is, other 
things equal, the better adapted he is for 
business. 

THE HIGHER EDUCATION GIVES MENTAL 
GRASP. 

A large part of education consists in the 
training it gives. Knowledge may be power, 
but a disciplined mind is powerful. Of course 
discipline can be obtained in many ways, and 
it is by no means lacking as the result of an 
orderly business experience. Good training 

43 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

in a good college, however, is a mental gym- 
nastic than which none better has yet been 
found. In fact, the knowledge which a 
student may acquire is by no means so im- 
portant as the control of his own mind which 
he should get from his college education. 
No matter if he cannot read a page of Latin, 
demonstrate a single proportion in trigono- 
metry, or recite the simplest chemical formula. 
All this can be passed by, provided he has 
learned how to think, how to use any or all 
of the powers of his mind readily, accurately, 
and vigorously at will. This is the richest 
fruit of a college course. For this a well- 
planned curriculum has been constructed. For 
this the ablest professors give their best efforts. 
President Garfield is credited with saying that 
" a good enough college for him was a log 
with himself on one end of it and Mark Hop- 
kins, the venerable president of Williams 
College, on the other." What he meant was 
that the training in thinking which that in- 
comparable teacher could give was really a 
liberal education in itself, and he was quite 
right. To have a mind stored with knowledge 
is a good thing. To have a mind under per- 

44 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

feet control at all times, is a far more impor- 
tant thing. Such a mind will know at once 
how and where to get any needed information. 

In other words, the higher education sup- 
plies both knowledge and power ; and of 
these power is the more important. 

Now, it is just this trained alertness of 
mind which business needs above all. One 
may get it without much schooling ; but the 
college man who has improved his opportuni- 
ties is sure to have it. He can think quickly, 
he can think accurately, he can see a point at 
once, he has no need of laborious explana- 
tions. In short, he has ready command of 
the tool which every business man must use — 
his head. Of course, if he has sawdust in 
his head, as some college students appear to 
have, not much can be expected of him. 
But in that case he certainly would have been 
no more efficient even if he had never gone 
to college. Sawdust brains are neither hurt 
nor helped by education. 

THE HIGHER EDUCATION GIVES A HIGH 
SENSE OF HONOR. 

It is not all college students who have a 
delicate sense of honor, more's the pity ; but 

45 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

after all, those who do not are the exception 
to a very general rule. The conditions under 
which students meet and associate in college 
are such as to develop genuine qualities. 
Shams are quickly seen through and cor- 
dially despised. Meanness and real vulgarity 
are looked down upon. Such rough and 
boisterous ways as students are apt to affect 
come from the overflow of animal spirits, and 
at least have in them nothing sneaking. On 
the contrary, there grows up among the 
young men an ideal of a gentleman which, if 
not altogether above criticism, has at least 
this sound quality — respect for one's word. 
A gentleman is above falsehood or low trick- 
ery ; he scorns it because he respects himself. 
Is not this, after all, the essence of the 
character of a gentleman ? That is, a char- 
acter which many affect and which not a few 
misconceive. Some seem to think it lies in 
the proper necktie, the correct hat, the crease 
in the trousers. Others place it in "good 
manners" of the ball-room or parlor type — 
they become carpet knights. Many are sure 
that to be a gentleman depends, at least, 
in some way on what ' ' they say, ' ' on what 

46 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

"they are wearing," on what custom pre- 
scribes, on " correct" manners. But all these 
put the standard outside oneself. The real 
gentleman has his standard within. He 
respects himself, and so he scorns an action 
which he knows to be low or mean. He 
scorns it, not because he fears the opinion of 
others, but because he does not wish to forfeit 
his own good opinion. He is not veneered. 
It is this type which, on the whole, the 
higher education tends to develop. No col- 
lege can make a gentleman out of a cad ; but 
all our colleges do in greater or less degree 
impress sound ideas. No young man can go 
successfully through a course of liberal learn- 
ing without getting a pretty clear notion of 
what self-respect demands, and without trying 
in the main to stick to what is honorable and 
clean. Such a man will not be found wantino- 
when he is tried. He will do what he agrees, 
he will be above low tricks, he will perform 
duties faithfully, he will be a reliable man. 

THE HIGHER EDUCATION ADAPTS ONE 
TO SOCIETY AT LARGE. 

" My foot is on my native heath," was the 
exultant ciy of MacGregor. He was at home 

47 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

and he feared nothing. He knew every inch 
of the mountains — the mountain air in his 
nostrils was like wine to quicken the blood 
— he was easily confident in his strength and 
skill, he was master among his men. But 
MacGregor, in his tartan plaid and kilt, walk- 
ing down the crowded street of a great capital, 
would have been awkward and constrained. 
Every gamin would have mocked him. He 
would have been out of place — bewildered 
amid his strange surroundings — confused and 
uncertain. His strength and skill would have 
been useless. 

How many a business man is like MacGre- 
gor? In his own office, among his familiar 
surroundings, he is full of energy and confi- 
dence. He knows what to do and how to do 
it. He exactly fits his environment — he is at 
home. But if he is a man of limited educa- 
tion and experience, as soon as he is put in 
other surroundings he is quite at sea. He 
does not know how to meet another type of 
men than that to which he is accustomed. 
In short, he is provincial. His circle of life 
is very small, and he is lost if he strays 
out of it. 

48 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

The higher education broadens the circle 
of existence. It makes one a man of the 
world at home, anywhere and among any 
class of men. One's business may be small, 
but there is a whole vast world outside of it 
with which education has made one familiar ; 
so one is not tethered to a spot. If circum- 
stances lead one outside the daily routine, 
there is no difficulty. One is in touch with 
life at all points. That is just the difference 
which education makes. A man of limited 
education is in touch with life in a few points. 
Wide education brings contact with life at 
many points. And this multiplication of con- 
tact with life just to that extent multiplies the 
man. The possibility of understanding and 
enjoyment is vastly greater ; the comprehen- 
sion and the grasp of business opportunities 
are vastly greater ; and especially there is 
room for much wider social influence. Very 
much of life lies outside the avocation in 
which a livelihood and a fortune are made. 
In the church, in the club, in politics, in 
public enterprises of all kinds, there is room 
for strong and able men to be felt. Small 
men, to be sure, find it all they can do to fill 

49 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

a small place in the world ; but men with big 
brains and big hearts are like the housewife's 
loaves of bread, which she sets by the stove 
to rise — they are sure to run over a small 
pan ; and when a man of energy and ability 
finds himself taking a part in the larger affairs 
of life, he will be only too glad to be well 
fitted for its activities. This fitness the higher 
education affords. It makes a man much 
more than a business man. 

THE HIGHER EDUCATION TRAINS TO ENJOY 
AS WELL AS TO DO. 

Many a man has made a fortune and then 
has no idea what to do with it. Of course, 
he can go on accumulating more money; 
in many cases he finds his main enjoyment in 
that. But the truth is that wealth in itself 
amounts to little ; its real value lies in the 
enormous possibilities which it opens. It is a 
great power, and one who knows what can be 
done with it realizes that it is not so much the 
possession of wealth as the use of wealth 
which makes it desirable; and it is quite as 
much an art to use money so as to get the 
most out of it as it is to acquire it. " Coal- 

5° 



THE HIG HER ED UCA TION 

Oil Johnny " suddenly found himself in pos- 
session of a vast fortune. He was an un- 
trained, ignorant boy. He squandered his 
money in such coarse pleasures as he could 
comprehend, and presently he was poor again. 
He not only did not know how to keep riches, 
but he had not the least idea how to use them 
for his own lasting enjoyment. Of course, 
that was an extreme case ; but there is a wide 
difference in this regard between one whose 
training has all gone to make him a mere 
business man, and one who has been educated 
with wider views. A highly educated man is 
many-sided. He appreciates and enjoys many 
things. To him wealth is a key which un- 
locks many doors, and he knows where the 
doors are and to what they lead. He is 
at home everywhere. He is not provincial 
but cosmopolitan in his way of life. He is 
a citizen of the world. 

WHO SHOULD GO TO COLLEGE. 

Should it be the aim to send every boy to 
college? Plainly not, any more than to make 
every boy a lawyer, or a druggist. In the 
first place, there will always be the great 

5i 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

army of those whose circumstances are such 
that there is no question of higher education. 
Then there are the few who are so bent on 
getting an education that nothing will keep 
them from college. With neither of these 
classes need there be any trouble. The 
question will arise only with those boys who 
can afford the time and expense of a college 
course, but who are quite surely destined for 
business. With them, will a college train- 
ing pay? 

It will pay if there is any likelihood of a 
career in some of the larger fields of business 
activity. A boy who probably will not get 
much beyond the position of assistant in a 
retail grocery may as well be satisfied with a 
common-school training ; but a business man 
who can give his son some advantages of a 
start in life may well include in those advan- 
tages a college education. If the boy is of 
the right sort, he will in college form habits 
of methodical industry, quite as well as in the 
factory. He will learn a larger intelligence 
than can be given by mere business experi- 
ence. His mind will be trained to ready 
command of all its faculties. If, again, he is 

52 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

the right sort of boy he will learn a high 
sense of honor. Beyond all this he will 
become adapted for social life in all its forms ; 
he will be at home anywhere, and he will 
have his ideas so broadened, and his tastes so 
cultivated that he will know how to make the 
most of life wherever he is. He will be a 
larger part of the community. 

As a rule, however, such a boy should be 
allowed to go to college ; he should not be 
sent unless he has some taste for study and 
some ambition for higher learning, the likeli- 
hood of his benefiting by college life is small. 
It is by no means essential that he should be 
a brilliant scholar ; he should be a respectable 
one. It should not be forgotten that a dis- 
taste for study by no means implies dullness ; 
and many a boy who is driven to college is 
spoiled by so doing. Let him follow his 
bent. Only in doing that let him get the 
discipline of will power that comes from hard 
work, systematically done, whether it is agree- 
able or not. 

But it should not be forgotten that the 
widened scope and increasing complexity of 
modern business life require more and more 

53 



THE HIGHER ED UCA TION 

of a higher training. One cannot safely go 
by the practices of a past generation. Great 
business undertakings to-day are demanding 
men of the broadest intelligence and of trained 
intellect. There will be increasing room for 
such men ; and such men need the light and 
the culture of the higher education. 

In fine, a boy who is inclined to go to 
college should be encouraged in that ambi- 
tion if the way is clear. Other things equal, 
he will be a better business man for his 
college training ; and he will be a larger 
man. 



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